Speaker 1: Loud and Quiet Presents Midnight Chats.
Speaker 2: It's late listeners, welcome to a brand new Midnight Chats,
Speaker 2: the third one of this fresh run of episodes, series seven,
Speaker 2: and I think it's going quite well so far. Cheers
Speaker 2: to Stuart for last week's podcast. That was Jason Williamson
Speaker 2: from Sleaford Mods chatting about eating spoons of mayonnaise out
Speaker 2: of the fridge. Really enjoyed that. And before that we
Speaker 2: had Yannis from Foles helping us kick the whole thing off.
Speaker 2: And we're here with you every Thursday at midnight for
Speaker 2: the next eight weeks or so. Now. As I said
Speaker 2: in that series opener, we spent the time in between
Speaker 2: finishing the last series and starting this current one recording
Speaker 2: new chats. And the one you're listening to here was
Speaker 2: back in January on Blue Monday, the so called most
Speaker 2: depressing day of the year. I think that's just some
Speaker 2: bloney cooked up in a marketing boardroom somewhere to sell
Speaker 2: a few gym memberships. But saying that, it was dark
Speaker 2: and it was very cold in our drafting office, and
Speaker 2: about twelve hours after this, London was covered in a
Speaker 2: deep blanket of snow, so it was peak winter Bleakness.
Speaker 2: So thank you to this Evening's guest Stella Donnelly for
Speaker 2: coming by to cheer us up with her infectious energy.
Speaker 2: We've wanted Stella on the podcast for a while. We
Speaker 2: featured her in our magazine Loud and Quiet a few
Speaker 2: years back when she first came to London from Australia
Speaker 2: to play a show. That was after we'd heard Thrush
Speaker 2: Metal Heir first EP, and she's done so much in
Speaker 2: the time since. When we recorded this, she was on
Speaker 2: a whistle stop tour of Europe to talk about her
Speaker 2: debut album, Beware of the Dogs, which very conveniently is
Speaker 2: out now on Secretly Canadian and all of the reviews
Speaker 2: I've read have been deservedly full of praise. And this
Speaker 2: conversation goes to a few disparate places. As a child,
Speaker 2: Stella spent a few years living in Swansea before moving
Speaker 2: to Australia, so we talk about her connections to Wales,
Speaker 2: her memories of that time, stereophonics and catatonia and all
Speaker 2: of that. We got onto hypnotherapy and how that's helped
Speaker 2: her fear of flying also stick with us because towards
Speaker 2: the end of this she tells a great story about
Speaker 2: something her dad did on her eighteenth birthday in front
Speaker 2: of all of her family and friends, and he sounds
Speaker 2: like a total character. And before we get into this,
Speaker 2: just to clarify something if you don't know Stella's work
Speaker 2: that well, we talk about a song called Boys Will
Speaker 2: Be Boys, which is a track that Stella wrote about
Speaker 2: a friend's experience of rape. And that's a key bit
Speaker 2: of info to contextualize the stuff where we're talking about
Speaker 2: the significance and the power of that song. In fact,
Speaker 2: the album generally doesn't shy away from issues that could
Speaker 2: be perceived as heavier like that, and that's what makes
Speaker 2: it essential. But it also mixes that alongside a wicked,
Speaker 2: sweary sense of humor that I think also comes out
Speaker 2: in this conversation. So the best thing you can do
Speaker 2: is go and give that album a listen, or even
Speaker 2: better still, go and see Stella live. Just finally, apologies
Speaker 2: to any Welsh listeners for my rubbish attempt at the accent.
Speaker 2: Definitely not my strong point. You'd have thought i'd been
Speaker 2: better at that considering that I lived there for a
Speaker 2: couple of years. Anyway, here we go. This is Stella
Speaker 2: Dunnley on Midnight Chats episode sixty six. Before we start,
Speaker 2: I just wanted to check when you were dreaming about
Speaker 2: a successful career in music, is this how you imagine
Speaker 2: it would be. You'd be in a kind of pokey
Speaker 2: office in East London on a cold January day with
Speaker 2: basically one heater there. It's probably just about keeping us
Speaker 2: both alive. This is the height of glamour, isn't It's funny.
Speaker 3: You said that I had. I had this exact dream.
Speaker 3: I think on the twenty third of November ninety ninety four.
Speaker 3: I think I was two years old and I had
Speaker 3: this dream that I was I was going to be
Speaker 3: here speaking to you, Greg. So thank you for making
Speaker 3: it happen. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2: Welcome. I'm glad we could just make that dream.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Today's Today's Blue Monday, apparently, I think originated as an
Speaker 2: artificially created sales thing, a bit like you know, things
Speaker 2: like Black Fridays. Yes, it's apparently the most depressing day
Speaker 2: of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.
Speaker 3: Right yeah. Yeah, in Australia, we're all partying down there.
Speaker 3: That's the happiest day ever. But you know up here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is this is supposed to be the most
Speaker 2: miserable day of the year. But I think this podcast
Speaker 2: we're going to We're going to cheers some people up. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, Well I just got some real Joni Mitchell
Speaker 3: blue kind of vibes and that actually made me feel
Speaker 3: more cozy than depressed.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's the Australian in me though maybe this is
Speaker 3: also novel. Up here, it's so cold, You're far too
Speaker 3: cold and cute, so cute with your miserable cold, your scars,
Speaker 3: your frostbite.
Speaker 2: So how long have you been in London?
Speaker 3: Have you just arrived twenty four hours ago? But not
Speaker 3: from Australia, So I came from America, so I'm not
Speaker 3: too jet lagged. I'm kind of Yeah.
Speaker 2: So back home at the moment in Australia, I don't
Speaker 2: know what it's like on the West Coast, but certainly
Speaker 2: parts of Australia are going through a record breaking heatweight.
Speaker 3: Yeah totally. I mean it's the same in the West. Yeah.
Speaker 3: We're lucky in my hometown in Fremantle, and we're lucky
Speaker 3: to have the ocean right there, so we do get
Speaker 3: the breeze that comes in at around like four o'clock.
Speaker 3: We talk about the wind so much in Perth and
Speaker 3: in Freemantle and my partner noticed it because he he's
Speaker 3: from Melbourne and he noticed how much we talk about
Speaker 3: the breeze and the sea breeze and we call it
Speaker 3: the Freemantle Doctor actually, and it's like the doctor comes
Speaker 3: in and the doctor's in. Oh, when's the doctor coming
Speaker 3: in today? Like because it's a big wind. Like, it's
Speaker 3: a big breeze, especially like in the winter time. Sometimes
Speaker 3: the doctor just stays in for three months, you know,
Speaker 3: and it's this whipping wind over the Indian Ocean and
Speaker 3: sometimes it brings in like some interesting smells from out
Speaker 3: on the boats, like the live exports ships and some
Speaker 3: you know, terrible things. But yeah, it's a really so
Speaker 3: we've kind of got that breeze that comes in and
Speaker 3: you know that you should go to the beach in
Speaker 3: the morning because in the afternoon you're just gonna get
Speaker 3: sand everywhere. And you know, it's we're very much like
Speaker 3: in touch with that. So we're lucky to have the
Speaker 3: Freeo Doctor in summer because it kind of you know,
Speaker 3: cools the heat wave a little bit.
Speaker 2: I'm going to ask you a little about Fremantle in
Speaker 2: a bit. And also you've been writing songs and performing
Speaker 2: around like the Perth area for a number of years.
Speaker 2: But in terms of the people that have maybe heard
Speaker 2: your name but don't necessarily know your story that well,
Speaker 2: you do have British connections, Welsh connections in particular. Tell
Speaker 2: me and those people are listening a little bit about that.
Speaker 3: Well, Hello Stella from the Valleys, now right, how you
Speaker 3: doing all right?
Speaker 2: It's pretty good. Yeah, it's got a little bit of
Speaker 2: ness there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's a nest kneel. Are you doing all right?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So I my mum is Welsh and we my dad's
Speaker 3: Aussie and we moved up to Wales from Australia when
Speaker 3: I was about five and we went to a Welsh
Speaker 3: speaking school, so shout out to bed Bach speak a
Speaker 3: little bit of Welsh. And it comes back whenever I
Speaker 3: come home, you know, it comes back whenever I come back,
Speaker 3: you know, and then it goes way again whenever I'm
Speaker 3: back in Australia. But and yeah, I lived here for
Speaker 3: I think about three years, four years, not very long,
Speaker 3: and then moved back to Australia. But that time in
Speaker 3: my life I think you're such a sponge at that age,
Speaker 3: you know, till about ten years old, you're such a sponge.
Speaker 3: So that part of my life is so vivid and
Speaker 3: it's such a I consider it such a big part
Speaker 3: of my identity. And I guess the Welsh culture is
Speaker 3: so strong and proud and you know full, and in Australia,
Speaker 3: as a white Australian, you know, we don't really have that.
Speaker 3: We've got beautiful culture and we've got beautiful things, but
Speaker 3: there's nothing really historical and deeply entrenched like the Welsh.
Speaker 3: You know, the Welsh language and songs and poetry and
Speaker 3: all of those things, so food, everything. So having that
Speaker 3: part of my childhood was a really beautiful and I
Speaker 3: feel really lucky. It was a beautiful thing and I
Speaker 3: feel really lucky to have had that.
Speaker 2: What kind of strong memories from that period? Is it
Speaker 2: the beautiful kind of sandy beaches of South Wales? Was it?
Speaker 2: The definitely not?
Speaker 3: I got some other and I speech memories unfortunately, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: well no, yeah, I mean the beaches were nice, but
Speaker 3: it was mostly this, you know, for me, it was
Speaker 3: I'd come from Australia, so the beaches were like, you know, okay,
Speaker 3: but you know, sorry, no offense. But and then but
Speaker 3: it was really kind of I guess it was my
Speaker 3: mum's family. You know, my aunties are both actors and
Speaker 3: they're both kind of really really interesting and intelligent and
Speaker 3: larger than life characters. So and my grandmother, my mum
Speaker 3: gee is as well. So having them around all the time,
Speaker 3: it was always there was always something crazy happening. You know,
Speaker 3: we're always doing an adventure and my Auntie lives in
Speaker 3: this crazy, beautiful old Georgian house in Sandela, and it's
Speaker 3: you know, I just have these crazy memories of making
Speaker 3: like a pink blamonde and going to the park, you know,
Speaker 3: just silly things that but you know, and singing I
Speaker 3: think was the big one. You know. We'd go to
Speaker 3: Chapel every Sunday and they'd always be singing. And I
Speaker 3: think that that's one thing I've really noticed is that
Speaker 3: the Welsh aren't embarrassed about that. You know. I played
Speaker 3: in Cardiff Last and my family, friends and family all
Speaker 3: came down to the show at Club Bio Bach and
Speaker 3: they I had cousins that came and friends and husbands
Speaker 3: that that you know, our builders and you know kind
Speaker 3: of very manly masculine men and they were all came
Speaker 3: up into the green room and just started singing, and
Speaker 3: even the men and even the young boys, everyone is
Speaker 3: just singing the songs and no one there's no kind
Speaker 3: of ego or embarrassment about it. It's just yeah. And
Speaker 3: I think that part of my childhood really kind of
Speaker 3: shaped me to really gravitate towards the music and the
Speaker 3: arts and those things.
Speaker 2: So that you already mentioned the Welsh are incredibly proud
Speaker 2: at their nation. Yes, and they tend to kind of
Speaker 2: very much like where that on their sleep, so to speak.
Speaker 2: Is your mum quite a sort of proud Welsh?
Speaker 3: She is? Yeah, I mean she's quite. She's a bit more.
Speaker 3: Mum's really like a very compassionate person and she really
Speaker 3: kind of They say that when you're very you have
Speaker 3: high empathy, you tend to kind of take on the
Speaker 3: accent of the country that you're in, and she really
Speaker 3: did that. When she moved to Australia, she was really
Speaker 3: accepted into that Australian lifestyle and she traveled through India
Speaker 3: for a long time. So she's she's got that Welsh
Speaker 3: like passion. But it definitely I notice it come back.
Speaker 3: Whenever she goes home and comes back, her accent is
Speaker 3: so strong, and she starts cooking on cowl and all
Speaker 3: these different foods again. And I can tell she gets
Speaker 3: cabin fever when she doesn't get to go back for
Speaker 3: a while. You know, I can tell that she gets
Speaker 3: this kind of feeling. There's there's a Welsh word for
Speaker 3: it called hero to eith or here at eight I
Speaker 3: think here at eight, and there's no English translation, but
Speaker 3: it's this. It's essentially like a longing for home, a
Speaker 3: longing for the motherland. And yeah, I can tell that
Speaker 3: she gets that sometimes.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, your mum sounds a lot more subtle than
Speaker 2: my mum.
Speaker 3: She's very subtle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So my mum's part Welsh, but she's she's
Speaker 2: got older. She's really sort of gravitated towards her Welsh breeze.
Speaker 2: And she likes to hang a flag out of the
Speaker 2: window of our house down the street when Wales are
Speaker 2: playing in the rugby.
Speaker 3: Amazing, that's a brave thing to do.
Speaker 2: She likes to shave in England, likes to terrorize the
Speaker 2: English neighbors.
Speaker 3: Good on her.
Speaker 2: I think the Welsh loved to do that though, they
Speaker 2: kind of do like, Oh, they loved the I don't
Speaker 2: like the word, but they do like the banter oh
Speaker 2: with the English.
Speaker 3: Particularly, Oh, the English deserve it. You know, it's no offense,
Speaker 3: but yes, actually offense intended. Yeah, you know the Welsh.
Speaker 3: If the Welsh could have a laugh with the English
Speaker 3: about it, then that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: You know. The Welsh are also really not only proud
Speaker 2: of their their nationality and their language and things like that,
Speaker 2: but obviously music. So when I lived in Wales, it
Speaker 2: was kind of a given. And I hope this doesn't
Speaker 2: come across as a cliche, but particularly the Welsh people
Speaker 2: that I lived with were all genuinely big fans of Stereophonics, Yes,
Speaker 2: oh my God, Catatonia and Manic Street Preachers, and if
Speaker 2: those bands came to town, they would turn out and go
Speaker 2: and see that.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. My parents took me on my eighteenth birthday to
Speaker 3: see Stereophonics play in Fremantle. They happened to play in
Speaker 3: Fremantle on my eighteenth birthday that my parents didn't know
Speaker 3: that I'd gone out the night before at like midnight
Speaker 3: when I turned eighteen, so I was a little bit
Speaker 3: hungover and apparently I fell asleep in the car on
Speaker 3: the way home, but we had the best time. And yeah,
Speaker 3: Stereophonics and Catatonia two that have just been so part
Speaker 3: of my life for so long. You know, all the
Speaker 3: drives in Wales when I was young would have the
Speaker 3: cassette of Stereophonics or Catatorny. My dad was. My dad
Speaker 3: really that when he came to Wales. Dad is really
Speaker 3: into all the Welsh music. Even though he's Australian, he
Speaker 3: kind of, you know, gravitated towards all of those lyrics
Speaker 3: and yeah, he's yeah, he really influenced.
Speaker 2: That Chris Matthews, who was the singer of Castonia. She's
Speaker 2: got an amazing show on BBC six Music. I don't
Speaker 2: know if you ever got a chance.
Speaker 3: I stream it Australia. Yes, I can't get enough. I've
Speaker 3: picked up so many amazing bands from her, and old
Speaker 3: music as well, and all sorts of music. She's just
Speaker 3: got such a good taste and I love her conversation
Speaker 3: and her voice. It's so calming to listen to on
Speaker 3: a Sunday. Yeah, she's really great. She sounds twelve years old, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 3: such a sweet voice.
Speaker 2: Is it true that when living in Wales. You did
Speaker 2: have a part on a Welsh soap opera radio program.
Speaker 1: Is that right?
Speaker 3: Very specific, isn't it? Well soap opera radio program only
Speaker 3: in the north.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I my auntie was on this show. So there's there's
Speaker 3: a well show called Pablo Cum which is People of
Speaker 3: the Valley. Yeah, so it's our it's essentially our neighbors
Speaker 3: and my auntie. They hadn't my aunties. Both of them
Speaker 3: have been in that for a long were in that
Speaker 3: for a long time. Not anymore, but my auntie Janne
Speaker 3: was Gloria in that show, and that was she was
Speaker 3: quite you know, quite well known around the time that
Speaker 3: she was that character. But she there was this side
Speaker 3: show called Eileen, which was one of the characters from
Speaker 3: Paula Cum. They made a radio soap opera about her,
Speaker 3: about that character. So it's kind of like a almost
Speaker 3: like a fan fiction, I guess of Pablo coma spin
Speaker 3: off exactly. So I got to play Eileen's daughter, Sean Ed.
Speaker 3: I'd only been speaking Welsh about two hours and they
Speaker 3: got me up and did this this radio show. The
Speaker 3: most that I remember is driving up to Bangor from
Speaker 3: Swansea every second Friday, I'd get to leave school early
Speaker 3: and Dad and I would drive up to Bangor and
Speaker 3: we listened to Yes Stereophonics and Catatonia and the U
Speaker 3: two early U two as well. We had that cassette
Speaker 3: and I would just remember the food mostly from that studio.
Speaker 3: I remember them giving me cookies and yeah, lollies and
Speaker 3: stuff like that. I don't remember much about the script.
Speaker 2: Well, your Auntie must have been like almost Welsh ruelty,
Speaker 2: because was like if people haven't come across it. You
Speaker 2: mentioned neighbors, it's like EastEnders. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, yeah, and won a Bafta not too long ago,
Speaker 3: actually a Welsh bafter.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: For her, she was in a Gwade Kachev was the
Speaker 3: show homework in English. She's really paved the way for
Speaker 3: many many Welsh actors. She's wonderful. Yeah, she's in that show. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm so lucky. My mom's actually the rebel of the
Speaker 3: three sisters. Mum became a nurse. She kind of she
Speaker 3: was the black sheep of the family and became a nurse.
Speaker 3: And her two sisters actors and yeah, yeah, yeah, shout
Speaker 3: out to an if.
Speaker 2: You're listening, that sounds like that was quite a sort
Speaker 2: of strong memories from that period of time when you
Speaker 2: went back to Fremantle or were you in Fremantle.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Fremantle is where I live now, so I moved
Speaker 3: down I'm a I'm a late comer to Fremantle. I've
Speaker 3: kind of I claim it as my own now, but
Speaker 3: I've only been there for about four or five years.
Speaker 3: I moved down there, you know, independently of my family.
Speaker 3: But my family live in a suburb up in the
Speaker 3: north of Perth, so it's kind of just a regular suburbia,
Speaker 3: kind of fishing town kind of Okay, is that what it's.
Speaker 2: Sort of known for?
Speaker 3: Is it?
Speaker 2: It's a it's Fremantle kind of like a satellite town
Speaker 2: to perfect Yeah, you.
Speaker 3: Can see Freemantle is the port. So Fremantle is our port,
Speaker 3: and it's it's got it's I guess it's maybe the
Speaker 3: brighton of of but of but it's not as fancy
Speaker 3: and it's it's we're really lucky in Freemantle to have
Speaker 3: I guess people that's where the first place if you
Speaker 3: go to West in Australia by boat, which many people
Speaker 3: did back in the day, was the only way to
Speaker 3: get to the country. You know, that's where you land
Speaker 3: is in Freemantle. That's where you dock is in Freemantle.
Speaker 3: So people from all sorts of all countries came and emigrated.
Speaker 3: And during the war a huge Italian population came by
Speaker 3: boat to Australia and they got off in Fremantle, never
Speaker 3: left and opened up restaurants. So we have this beautiful
Speaker 3: Italian architecture and food and culture and there's just this
Speaker 3: real hub of all sorts of foods. And then we
Speaker 3: had a huge Vietnamese population and then Chinese population, so
Speaker 3: all these kind of great food places are in Fremantle,
Speaker 3: and there's all this kind of heritage architecture from when
Speaker 3: the first boats came, and it's a very kind of
Speaker 3: cultural Meccha.
Speaker 2: Was it those factors that drew you to there rather
Speaker 2: than moving into the city.
Speaker 3: And yeah, yeah, And all the really good music, yes,
Speaker 3: I think so. And all the really good music venues
Speaker 3: are in Fremantle. Got a place called Mojo's which is
Speaker 3: where all of us cut our teeth. That's where Tam
Speaker 3: and Parlor cut their teeth. It's where we all kind
Speaker 3: of play and I still play there, you know, And
Speaker 3: but you know, you could go there and do an
Speaker 3: open mic night on a Monday, and then you know,
Speaker 3: get a show and then yeah, it's just that, it's
Speaker 3: just it's got music every night of the week and
Speaker 3: it's such a great venue. So yeah, So.
Speaker 2: With that scene, then kind of paint a picture for me.
Speaker 2: You're in your teens when you first started performing and
Speaker 2: writing music. Did you feel like, did you have any
Speaker 2: nerves going about playing your first shows in Fremantle or
Speaker 2: wherever you were when you're playing your first shows. Just
Speaker 2: talk to me a little bit about your sort of
Speaker 2: beginnings and getting out there and playing music.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I started out playing other people's songs. Really
Speaker 3: when I was seventeen eighteen, I was playing covers at
Speaker 3: a market, like to make a bit of extra cash,
Speaker 3: like when I was fifteen in school. You know, Mum
Speaker 3: would do her grocery shopping and I would sing on
Speaker 3: the corner in the food market and make about twenty bucks.
Speaker 3: And then eventually as someone walked past who happened to
Speaker 3: book cover artists in restaurants, so he was like, I
Speaker 3: can make you some money, and I was like, okay, Oh,
Speaker 3: you'll have to talk to my dad, but okay. And
Speaker 3: then my first of a show was at a place
Speaker 3: called the Wanneroo Tavern, which is where you win a
Speaker 3: prize if you eat like this giant rump of steak.
Speaker 3: Like it's that kind of I hope that paints the
Speaker 3: picture for you. Yeah, exactly, hope that paints the picture.
Speaker 3: It's a real kind of like and there's like a
Speaker 3: tab which is like a sports bet kind of area,
Speaker 3: like you know, behind where you can smoke. And yeah,
Speaker 3: I would play in the corner for three and a
Speaker 3: half hours doing covers while people eat their dinner. But
Speaker 3: I managed to and my friends would come down because
Speaker 3: we're all young. We're seventeen still, so my dad and
Speaker 3: mum would have to come because I was underage, so
Speaker 3: they'd bring my friends. They'd all go for dinner and
Speaker 3: you know, take photos. And that was you know, they
Speaker 3: were my first gigs. And then eventually I started playing
Speaker 3: in other people's bands, you know, and working on their
Speaker 3: original projects. And I did that for a long time.
Speaker 3: I was There was one point when I was working
Speaker 3: in a cafe and working in a bar and playing
Speaker 3: in six bands, all different genres, all different instruments, all
Speaker 3: different things. But it was so much fun. I had
Speaker 3: a gig every night, Like sometimes I had to rush
Speaker 3: from one to the other and it was so much fun.
Speaker 2: So that was really have any time for yourself.
Speaker 3: Well not really, and I guess at the time it
Speaker 3: was a really good distraction. I think I'd been put
Speaker 3: pressuring myself for so long to do my own EP,
Speaker 3: do my own thing, you know, put out your songs,
Speaker 3: and I wasn't ready. I clearly wasn't ready because I
Speaker 3: procrastinated for five or six years. You know, I was
Speaker 3: twenty five when the EP came out, So I procrastinated
Speaker 3: doing other people's stuff for so long. But I'm so
Speaker 3: glad I did that because it gave me so much
Speaker 3: perspective on other people's music and how to treat a
Speaker 3: band well, and how to articulate yourself and you know,
Speaker 3: how to conduct yourself. I'd curate shows, I'd put on shows,
Speaker 3: I'd book other artists and stuff like that. So having
Speaker 3: those experiences under my belt has given me so much
Speaker 3: kind of you know insight.
Speaker 2: What was the first song that you wrote that you
Speaker 2: considered your own song that you were then you were like, okay,
Speaker 2: now I'm ready, I'm ready to share this song as myself. Yeah.
Speaker 3: It was mechanical Ball, it was Yeah, it was Mechanical Ball. Well,
Speaker 3: I put out the EP and then I yeah, I
Speaker 3: don't even know. I think, I just yeah, I don't
Speaker 3: know why, hang on, I'm just trying to think of
Speaker 3: the order events. Because the EP came out on cassette tape.
Speaker 3: It was like thirty cassette tapes and that was it.
Speaker 3: And then I would put Mechanical Ball on like all
Speaker 3: the social stuff like on you know, on SoundCloud. I think,
Speaker 3: yeah it SoundCloud, yeah, and people were listening to it
Speaker 3: on that and then eventually the EP came out and
Speaker 3: everything went all things go yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: And what has the experience been like of the last
Speaker 2: eighteen months, because, like you say that, the EP came
Speaker 2: out Thrush Metal and a lot of opportunities have come
Speaker 2: your way since. You know, you've made numerous trips to Europe,
Speaker 2: You've been in States, You've obviously toured Australia fairly kind
Speaker 2: of heavily. Now does that long haul flight from Australia
Speaker 2: to the Europe UK get any easier the more you
Speaker 2: do it?
Speaker 3: No, There's there's a song on the album, the Cold Lunch,
Speaker 3: and it's about kind of that homesickness that you get
Speaker 3: before you leave. I tend to really embrace once I'm away,
Speaker 3: once I've got landed and I'm on that on the
Speaker 3: on the floor, on the ground, I'm there, I'm ready,
Speaker 3: I'm present, and I'm excited and I love it and
Speaker 3: I really kind of flourish in that time. But that
Speaker 3: week leading up to leaving is really tough for me.
Speaker 3: I struggle to kind of because when you're at home,
Speaker 3: you're vulnerable. I think, you know, you allow yourself to
Speaker 3: be really comfortable around the people you love, and they're
Speaker 3: your safety nets. You're around them, you let go, and
Speaker 3: then all of a sudden you have to kind of go, oh,
Speaker 3: I've got to put up these walls again to survive.
Speaker 3: You know, when you go on to a solo, you've
Speaker 3: got to kind of like put up these protections for
Speaker 3: yourself just to get through it. Not that it's difficult,
Speaker 3: but you know, when you travel a new place every day,
Speaker 3: it can get pretty exhausting mentally. So that week leading
Speaker 3: up to it is really tough. And I'm a really
Speaker 3: bad flyer, so that I've got a really bad fear
Speaker 3: of flying, and you know, I just haven't let it
Speaker 3: stop me. And the only thing change that I've made
Speaker 3: is that I've just like kind of I've decided to
Speaker 3: just spend a little bit of extra money to fly
Speaker 3: on airlines that I feel safer on now, you know,
Speaker 3: And I think that that's the only change that I've
Speaker 3: made it and it has improved things, you know, knowing
Speaker 3: that I don't have to catch Ryan airflight or something
Speaker 3: like that. You know, it just makes me feel just
Speaker 3: when you have to do it so much and you
Speaker 3: have to do you know, you know, so many flights
Speaker 3: in a year or whatever, Knowing that you're at least
Speaker 3: on like trusted airlines is kind of a beneficial thing.
Speaker 2: Do you find yourself going through any sort of helpful
Speaker 2: rituals or anything then before you fly, just to kind
Speaker 2: of keep your nerves calm or anything that you I mean,
Speaker 2: for example, when you're traveling from to presumer you grab
Speaker 2: a flight from Perth to like London or whatever.
Speaker 3: Well Perth, Yeah, it goes Perth to Dubai to London.
Speaker 3: So it ends up being about twenty one hours.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's like a day, Yeah, just disappears.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, how do you are there any little things
Speaker 2: that you can do to just prepare yourself for that,
Speaker 2: because it must be weird. When you look at your
Speaker 2: phone calendar, that day is just basically right. I'm just
Speaker 2: gonna be up in the sky.
Speaker 3: Totally, totally. I mean, I have an amazing sight. Who
Speaker 3: did this like great hypnot It's a bit complex, but
Speaker 3: she she kind of she did this great hypnotherapy thing
Speaker 3: on me, and it sounds crazy, but it's it really worked.
Speaker 3: And she used these words essentially, it's like a guided meditation.
Speaker 3: And she had me lay down. I shouldn't be telling
Speaker 3: you all this, but whatever. She had me lay down,
Speaker 3: and she would say trigger words like airport running, late, turbulence,
Speaker 3: you know, seat belts, air conditioning, all these things that
Speaker 3: trigger my fear I guess of flying, you know, all
Speaker 3: these kind of weird takeoff, landing, all these words that
Speaker 3: I guess spark that little fear of thing in my brain.
Speaker 3: All the while she's giving me a guided meditation of
Speaker 3: like swimming in the ocean. So she's telling me this
Speaker 3: story about me swimming in the ocean. She's like, imagine that,
Speaker 3: you know, diving into the water, blah blah blah, and
Speaker 3: then she'll just drop those words into the guided meditation.
Speaker 3: So for and youve got to you've got to kind
Speaker 3: of go back and do You've got to kind of
Speaker 3: go back every kind of few months to kind of
Speaker 3: get a top up of it. I guess I'm not
Speaker 3: running around like a chicken or anything. But and for
Speaker 3: a while there, I would get this image when whenever
Speaker 3: someone said airport or anything to me, without realizing it,
Speaker 3: I would have this flash in my brain and it
Speaker 3: would be this folk like this little picture of a
Speaker 3: wave would disappear or something like that. It's it's amazing. Honestly,
Speaker 3: I'd never thought I would be. I didn't. I always
Speaker 3: thought that my brain would be too conscious to be hypnotized,
Speaker 3: do you know what I mean. But she really she
Speaker 3: managed to get me. And yeah, for a while there,
Speaker 3: she really managed to kind of get into my head
Speaker 3: and make me think about Yeah, she just like put
Speaker 3: this subconscious relaxation thing on me, and that really helped.
Speaker 3: So if ever, if anyone out there has got a
Speaker 3: bad fear of flying or a bad fear of anything,
Speaker 3: check out hypnotherapy like a really good psychologist, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Tip for the tip for the for the musicians out
Speaker 3: there scared of flying. Yeah, so many are so many
Speaker 3: musicians are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we had Courtney Barnett came on the
Speaker 2: podcast a year almost a year ago to the day,
Speaker 2: sat where you're sat right now, and she was just
Speaker 2: talking about just the toll of moving around to that
Speaker 2: extent particularly, I mean you pretty much you know your base,
Speaker 2: your home is almost it couldn't really be further from
Speaker 2: where we are right now.
Speaker 3: The city in the world, Perth is, you know, it's
Speaker 3: it's geographically the most isolated metropolitan city in the world.
Speaker 2: So yeah, exactly, so you like pop over here for
Speaker 2: you must kind of presumably in London for a few
Speaker 2: days a week or something before you have to go back,
Speaker 2: and so your body's only just getting used to being
Speaker 2: here to then swop back there. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I came to London for two days last year and
Speaker 3: that I didn't get time to be jet lagged. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it was crazy. But yeah, someone in Courtney Barnett's band
Speaker 3: said something once and I loved it. I loved it.
Speaker 3: They were like, your resource on tour. It may even
Speaker 3: be Courtney, your resource on tour. When you're touring, what
Speaker 3: you feed on is food and claps, just like you
Speaker 3: know that that's the thing that feeds you and keeps
Speaker 3: you going, Like do we get the claps. Yes, did
Speaker 3: we get the food?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: All right? Next next, Like, that's that's your economy essentially,
Speaker 3: when you're exactly food and claps, that sounds really bleak.
Speaker 3: You know, obviously there are some absolute you know, I
Speaker 3: don't want to sound like I'm complaining at all because
Speaker 3: it's just such a blah blah blah. You know, you
Speaker 3: know that I'm grateful for all of this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but also, yeah, it is, it's not it's certainly
Speaker 2: not the most kind of physically or mentally easiest thing
Speaker 2: to cope with by making these like regularly making long journeys.
Speaker 3: And yeah, it's definitely an interesting thing because it's not
Speaker 3: really a natural state of being really humans. The closest
Speaker 3: thing you get is nomads, but they had their families
Speaker 3: with them when they moved around, you know, to hit
Speaker 3: the mic, sorry, but yeah, it's not a very normal
Speaker 3: state of being. I'm actually I'm friends with Tyler Wright,
Speaker 3: who's a pro surfer. She won the WSL a few
Speaker 3: year is in a row. She's incredible. But she came
Speaker 3: on tour with us for a little while. She's dating
Speaker 3: a friend of mine, and she was like, I don't
Speaker 3: know how you do this, and she travels the world surfing,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. She does exactly what we do.
Speaker 3: But in terms of like the late nights, she's like,
Speaker 3: I'd be in bed by now and I'd be awake
Speaker 3: with like a green smoothie at six am, and I'd
Speaker 3: be hitting the surf. You know, we're kind of like
Speaker 3: late night, get up early, get on a plane. You know.
Speaker 3: It's like a very different It's not exactly a health
Speaker 3: promoting healthy living.
Speaker 2: I tried to, but yeah, I think it's been important
Speaker 2: to hear artists also talking in those terms a little
Speaker 2: bit more the last few years, just you know, the
Speaker 2: conversation about sort of mental health in music, and yeah,
Speaker 2: since we've come to the forefront a little bit more
Speaker 2: in terms of just making people just a touch more aware,
Speaker 2: it is like, it's ultimately it's your job, it's the
Speaker 2: area you're working, and it's a fairly taxing kind of
Speaker 2: you already mentioned it's slightly it's unlike a lot of
Speaker 2: any other type of work. So it's been good to
Speaker 2: hear people talk about that and the strains it can put.
Speaker 3: On people, I think, yeah, and to let people know
Speaker 3: that it's okay to feel that way. As well, and
Speaker 3: that you know, you don't have to drink. You don't
Speaker 3: have to because there's so alcohol industry is so entrenched
Speaker 3: in the music industry and all of those things, and
Speaker 3: it doesn't have to be like that. You don't have
Speaker 3: to fit that bill to make it as a musician.
Speaker 3: In fact, you probably shouldn't if you want to survive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you come up against those conventions of being like,
Speaker 2: turn up a gig and they're like, oh, there's.
Speaker 3: Your No, I've always been really sensitive to alcohol. I'm
Speaker 3: sensitive to everything. I can't even drink coffee without bouncing
Speaker 3: off the walls. I come pre caffeinated, so I'm really
Speaker 3: sensitive to everything, which is good because my body tells
Speaker 3: me when something's not good for it. But also like,
Speaker 3: it'd be nice to be able to bloody enjoy a
Speaker 3: glass of wine over dinner and not, you know, be
Speaker 3: pissed under the table yelling abuse. No, I'm kidding, but
Speaker 3: you know, I have to kind of be I have
Speaker 3: to be really careful, and I get sick as soon
Speaker 3: as if I have more than three or four drinks
Speaker 3: or whatever, I my tonsil's flare up and my immunity
Speaker 3: goes out. The wind so I don't drink on tour.
Speaker 3: I drink when I'm home playing board games, you know,
Speaker 3: in that vulnerable state. Christmas Day exactly, seven am, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: But yeah, no, I don't. I don't conform to that.
Speaker 2: No, So we talked a little bit about what you
Speaker 2: some of the stuff you've been able to do the
Speaker 2: last eighteen months. Also had the opportunity to go on
Speaker 2: tour with some great artists and thinking of recently people
Speaker 2: like Natalie Prass, what have you learned from the experience
Speaker 2: of going on tour with artists like that.
Speaker 3: Well, Natalie's just the most perfect example you could have chosen,
Speaker 3: because I learned so much from her touring with her.
Speaker 3: She's I hold her to such high regard as a musician,
Speaker 3: for one, and as as a person. She we both
Speaker 3: kind of had similar starts in that she played in
Speaker 3: another band for a long time, and you know, like myself,
Speaker 3: so we've both kind of been a company a companyist, accompanists,
Speaker 3: oh my god, for other people. But yeah, she she
Speaker 3: conducts herself in such a professional way and is so
Speaker 3: kind and caring. And I just watched the way because
Speaker 3: when I went on tour with her, I was about
Speaker 3: to do my first Australian tour with the band, So
Speaker 3: I watched very carefully at how she there were. You know,
Speaker 3: on a tour, you get a lot of crisis situations happen,
Speaker 3: you know, guitars break, things happen, you know, shit happens
Speaker 3: on tour a lot. And I just watched the way
Speaker 3: that she conducted herself during those crises and during those things,
Speaker 3: and the way that she stepped back and allowed everyone
Speaker 3: to do their jobs. And I took that on board
Speaker 3: a lot when I went on tour and I will
Speaker 3: hopefully continue to do that. I just really liked the
Speaker 3: way that she didn't feel the need to kind of
Speaker 3: be on top of everything, because that's a lot of pressure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, is there a kind of tendency to feel that
Speaker 2: you need to do that is particularly when you're starting
Speaker 2: out where you're like I kind of need to know
Speaker 2: every detailing. Yeah, like you take part in the panic
Speaker 2: of if a flight is canceled. There are people around
Speaker 2: the over to help.
Speaker 3: You capable of you know, absolutely absolutely, so she's amazing
Speaker 3: and just watching her on stage, just her voice and
Speaker 3: everything like that. But even getting to do like I've
Speaker 3: got to do a lot of the same festivals with
Speaker 3: the same sorry, a lot of festivals with the same
Speaker 3: artists as well. So I've become good friends with Lucy
Speaker 3: Dakas and Snail Mail, Lindsay and Hailey Hendrix is another
Speaker 3: one that we've We've played a lot of the same
Speaker 3: festivals over here. And yeah, there's there's a bunch of
Speaker 3: bands that I have so much respect for and I
Speaker 3: learned so much from, Like Lucy Dacus. I get all
Speaker 3: my book recommendations from her and you know, like everything
Speaker 3: she's just as she's an encyclopedia.
Speaker 2: This sort of skips ahead a little bit, but obviously
Speaker 2: people what's been great or certainly a trend the last
Speaker 2: I don't know, a couple of years, maybe when you've
Speaker 2: seen artists like Lucy Dakas and obviously Phoebe Bridges and
Speaker 2: they had projects like Boy Genius Genius. Yeah, you've obviously
Speaker 2: played in bands in the past, Like I mean, you're
Speaker 2: in the cusp of releasing your debuts as a said
Speaker 2: of artist, But were you in the future do you
Speaker 2: think you'll invite the idea of being flexible and you know,
Speaker 2: creating new bands or joining other bands briefly because it's
Speaker 2: a thing you've done in the past, that's an idea
Speaker 2: that you like, Oh, definitely.
Speaker 3: I mean I went on tour with methyl ethyl on
Speaker 3: guitar for them because their poor Hamish cut his hand
Speaker 3: open like a week before the tour of the festivals.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I had to learn their songs in about
Speaker 3: ten days and make it happen. And if I, you know,
Speaker 3: the more opportunities I get to do things like that,
Speaker 3: the better, you know. That's how I get better at
Speaker 3: my instruments, you know, and also how you become kind
Speaker 3: of empathetic and aware of other people's projects and other
Speaker 3: people's visions and not letting your you know, not thinking
Speaker 3: that my ideas are the be all end all of
Speaker 3: music ever, you know, Beethoven, you know, like I just yeah,
Speaker 3: So it's a really good way to kind of like,
Speaker 3: it's really good for the ego to help other people
Speaker 3: or just be part of someone else's project and sit
Speaker 3: back and just do your part and that's it and
Speaker 3: you don't have to add any fluff, just play the
Speaker 3: part and shut up, you know. And if I get
Speaker 3: to do that, that'd be great. But also I'd love
Speaker 3: to do some co writing and projects with other people
Speaker 3: and help people on their projects. Yeah, for sure, It's
Speaker 3: definitely something I'm open to. But the album's kind of
Speaker 3: taking up the whole brain right now. Yeah, I've been
Speaker 3: very selfish.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we need to talk about that because I haven't
Speaker 2: even mentioned it yet and we're over half an hour,
Speaker 2: so be Where the Dogs is the debut album before
Speaker 2: I'm going to get into some of the standout tracks
Speaker 2: on that. I think a characteristic that people have often
Speaker 2: pointed towards when they've talked about your music so far,
Speaker 2: it is just how honest it is and how funny
Speaker 2: it is, but also tackle some pretty serious issues, and
Speaker 2: as that side of you always come out in in
Speaker 2: the songs that you've written.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's essentially just a dramatic version of
Speaker 3: me and how I have conversations with people and myself
Speaker 3: and how I deal with things. You know, I talk
Speaker 3: about it, I cry about it, then I laugh about it.
Speaker 3: You know. That's kind of the only way I know
Speaker 3: how to process. Yes, So yeah, it was only ever
Speaker 3: going to be honest for me, because yeah, I don't
Speaker 3: think I think I would fatigue a lot quicker if
Speaker 3: I was touring songs that I didn't really resonate with
Speaker 3: or that I didn't feel were actually me. If I
Speaker 3: had to kind of put on a character every night,
Speaker 3: I think that I think I'd burn out a lot quicker,
Speaker 3: you know, So yeah, I think yeah, I've never really
Speaker 3: thought about it. It's always just that's just been how
Speaker 3: I write and how I process things.
Speaker 2: Before I took about or ask about a couple of
Speaker 2: the songs on there that I particularly love. Boys Will
Speaker 2: Be Boys is a track that people might may have heard,
Speaker 2: is one of the first things that you released. What
Speaker 2: has it been like taking performing that song as you
Speaker 2: have the last few years, as you've been like touring
Speaker 2: around and yeah, playing that in front of audiences, but
Speaker 2: obviously you presume having conversations with with fans and people
Speaker 2: that have attended shows and festivals and things like that.
Speaker 2: So has that opened out? Has there been positive effects
Speaker 2: to being so direct and honest about what ultimately is
Speaker 2: a very kind of harrowing experience that a friend went
Speaker 2: So have you felt a positive energy come from writing
Speaker 2: like that?
Speaker 3: Definitely? And I feel like if people hear that song
Speaker 3: and that's my first you know, if that's the first
Speaker 3: people hear of me, they know what they're getting. And
Speaker 3: I'm really glad that I did that because my audience
Speaker 3: are so beautiful. The people that come and buy tickets
Speaker 3: to my gigs are such progressive and understanding people or
Speaker 3: people that are willing to learn and stuff like that,
Speaker 3: And I'm really glad that I did that because it
Speaker 3: gave me that opportunity to continue to speak out if
Speaker 3: I needed to, which I have done in a few
Speaker 3: of the songs on the album. But I you know,
Speaker 3: I write about other things too, you know, but yeah,
Speaker 3: that song really has put me in situations I never
Speaker 3: thought i'd be. And I went on a panel with
Speaker 3: Henry Rowlands at Splendor in the Grass festival back home
Speaker 3: and we got into a bit of an argument. It
Speaker 3: was great. I really like Henry. He said something a
Speaker 3: bit silly, like I don't think he meant it in
Speaker 3: that way, but he said something like, you know, it's
Speaker 3: up to the women to educate the men these things,
Speaker 3: blah blah blah, and I was like, hey, Henry, wait
Speaker 3: a second, Like he was straight away like, you know,
Speaker 3: it was like cool, Yeah, he retreated and understood it.
Speaker 3: I really like Henry Rowlands. He was really great. But
Speaker 3: you know that that song has really kind of put
Speaker 3: me in situations where I'm like, I don't think I
Speaker 3: should be here. I don't know, I don't think I'm
Speaker 3: smart enough for this, you know, and I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm kind of just bluffing. Really, I think everyone is.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I wrote that song two years before the
Speaker 3: Me Too movement. So never in my wildest dreams did
Speaker 3: I think that that song would kind of come out
Speaker 3: at the same time, or come out a week before
Speaker 3: it happened. Yeah, a week two days before Harvey Weinstein
Speaker 3: was outed. I put that song out. It's the weirdest
Speaker 3: kind of like you know, serendipity ever. I don't know
Speaker 3: if it's good or bad, but that's, you know, just
Speaker 3: what happened. And yeah, so that that song and I'm
Speaker 3: to be able to reach people with that message. It
Speaker 3: has been so beautiful. Yeah, and I've had such wonderful feedback.
Speaker 3: I've had some absolutely fucking shit house feedback from people,
Speaker 3: but mostly it's been.
Speaker 2: Lovely people online online.
Speaker 3: Yeah always yeah, yeah, yeah, it's always just like death
Speaker 3: threats and stuff, just just casual death threats. But yeah,
Speaker 3: it's just like, you know, it's just people hiding in
Speaker 3: their mother's basement with KFC grease on their fingers, kind of,
Speaker 3: you know, getting upset that I'm not talking about men
Speaker 3: all the time.
Speaker 2: You know, Yeah, it is easy to kind of brush
Speaker 2: that stuff off as you make it sound there or
Speaker 2: is it or is it actually quite.
Speaker 3: When when it first started, when I when the when
Speaker 3: the trolling happened for the first time, I really I
Speaker 3: had a bit of a day. I really I was
Speaker 3: pretty distraught and yeah, spoke to you know, my best
Speaker 3: friend sent me chocolate. You know, it was one of
Speaker 3: those days kind of and I, yeah, that was tough.
Speaker 3: But then it I processed it and dealt with it,
Speaker 3: and now I find ways to kind of talk about it.
Speaker 3: And I think the main thing for me was with
Speaker 3: the album not letting that stop me in what I
Speaker 3: was going to say, and in fact, it kind of
Speaker 3: fueled me.
Speaker 2: Say, was it a sign that you're actually doing something
Speaker 2: ortant than necessary and right?
Speaker 3: Totally? And also it also made me realize how lucky
Speaker 3: I am because I'm a white girl, so I fit
Speaker 3: into a pretty common stereotype and for me to be
Speaker 3: getting trolled it's pretty crazy. But I think about friends
Speaker 3: of mine who are women of color, non binary people,
Speaker 3: trans people who speak out and the shit that they
Speaker 3: cop is just like tenfold to what I have received.
Speaker 3: And you know, I think about that all the time,
Speaker 3: and I think, if I'm using my privilege to do something,
Speaker 3: then yeah, I'm doing something right. Yeah, it fuels it.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, does it feel like when
Speaker 2: you because you're gaining a platform. You haven't obviously a
Speaker 2: platform already, but it feels like when it's only growing?
Speaker 2: So does it feel important to use your platform to
Speaker 2: say things that are personally important to you? And I
Speaker 2: hope hopefully have a kind of wider positive repercussions.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I've always even before I had any sort of
Speaker 3: before anyone knew who I was, I would put things
Speaker 3: on Facebook and Instagram, you know what I mean. It's
Speaker 3: a kind of I've always been like that, and I
Speaker 3: just never let it stop when things went a bit
Speaker 3: crazy and my parents were like, oh my god, just
Speaker 3: like what are you doing? But then they fully jumped
Speaker 3: on board and realized. And I remember talking to them
Speaker 3: and because Mum called and was like, you know, be careful,
Speaker 3: you know, be careful. Now that you've got this, you
Speaker 3: should be grateful and just and I'm like, Mum, this
Speaker 3: is this is actually more reason for me to continue.
Speaker 3: And I think, you know, as soon as I stop
Speaker 3: using that platform to make a change, I should get
Speaker 3: off the platform and give it to someone else. You know.
Speaker 3: That's how I feel. I feel like there's there is
Speaker 3: a long list of names who deserve that platform and
Speaker 3: are waiting for it. So I'm going to continue to
Speaker 3: while I'm on it, while I'm on the podium, while
Speaker 3: I've got the mic, I'm going to continue to kind
Speaker 3: of stir shit up a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, away from Boys will be Boys. You already mentioned it.
Speaker 2: There's a kind of huge variety of kind of themes
Speaker 2: on the album. It's a really funny record. It's a
Speaker 2: really sweary record.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a sixteen times in Seasons Greetings. Yeah, I know
Speaker 3: that because we did the radio edit version and there
Speaker 3: were sixteen pauses.
Speaker 2: And actually, so I was going to say, like Season
Speaker 2: Screens is my favorite song, thank you, and it's well,
Speaker 2: I mean, I'll let you explain. It's it's kind of
Speaker 2: it's kind of a story of being surrounded by family
Speaker 2: and maybe their expectations of what or family and friends
Speaker 2: maybe yeah, about kind of what they think that you
Speaker 2: should be doing, and you're maybe like kind of like
Speaker 2: you're stepping too often outside of the box up to
Speaker 2: you kind of thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally, totally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it ends with this sort of yeah, like
Speaker 2: a kind of sweary outro, which which I personally thought
Speaker 2: was pretty funny.
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you. We're going to replace all the
Speaker 3: fucks with like dog barks, but it became too busy,
Speaker 3: so we just did did the mutes. Yeah, that song,
Speaker 3: you've pretty much yeah, captured it in a nutshell. It's
Speaker 3: like capturing that Australian family Christmas, any family Christmas really,
Speaker 3: but I do a little like hat tip to Paul
Speaker 3: Kelly who's got a song called how to Make Ravy
Speaker 3: and it's about Christmas and it's I just it's not
Speaker 3: it's always very Everything I write is based on something,
Speaker 3: but it's hypothetical in a broader sense, and you know
Speaker 3: the details of it are relatively hypothetical and yeah and yeah,
Speaker 3: So just trying to capture that the essence of the
Speaker 3: Australian I remember trying to like through the window when
Speaker 3: Tylia and Jenny Tarlie is my drummer and Jenny Jenny's
Speaker 3: my bass player. We recorded it to tape machine, so
Speaker 3: it was a very kind of like scary process because
Speaker 3: tape's expensive and you know, they wanted to get it
Speaker 3: right pretty soon. There was no editing or anything like that.
Speaker 3: So I remember going I remember having going through the
Speaker 3: microphone to Tarlie, who had her headphones on. She was drumming,
Speaker 3: and I say, Okay, Tylia, pretend that you've just walked
Speaker 3: into family Christmas and you know, someone's just dropped like
Speaker 3: a plate of sausage rolls on the floor, and because
Speaker 3: someone's made like a homophobic comment across the table to
Speaker 3: your cousin who hasn't come out yet, and you know,
Speaker 3: like imagine that. And she played and we got the
Speaker 3: hate like straight away. She got it. It just like
Speaker 3: was so perfect, and her and Jen just like locked
Speaker 3: in together and we had the track like four takes in.
Speaker 2: It was you must have some telepathy if you're kind
Speaker 2: of go through a description of that and I know
Speaker 2: exactly what you mean. I got it. I got this.
Speaker 3: It. It was so fun getting to paint the pictures
Speaker 3: of each songs, especially the funny ones. I was like, okay, Natalia,
Speaker 3: I want you to imagine that you're walking, you know,
Speaker 3: just like every different song I had a different like
Speaker 3: scenario and that really helped her kind of get into.
Speaker 2: The zone and it was fun the sort of humour
Speaker 2: side of it, so that your sense of humor really
Speaker 2: comes out on the album. Are you a fan of
Speaker 2: like comedy? Like what do you like stand up comedy
Speaker 2: or like TV comedy? Because it does feel like there's
Speaker 2: almost like one Niners on there. It's kind of yeah,
Speaker 2: there's like punchlines and kind of and like you say,
Speaker 2: it's it's quite it's sort of like profanities for fanity's
Speaker 2: sake because it's funny and stuff like that. So that
Speaker 2: does that come into it anywhere along the line?
Speaker 3: I mean my dad when we moved to Wales. My
Speaker 3: dad couldn't get a job as a school teacher over
Speaker 3: here because the Welsh education system was really different to
Speaker 3: the Australian one for some reason. So he would be
Speaker 3: a stay at home dad. Well mum would go out
Speaker 3: and work as a nurse, and then at night he
Speaker 3: would go and do comedy clubs to make money. So
Speaker 3: Dad played guitar and wrote songs about Princess Diana and
Speaker 3: all sorts of bullshit that I probably don't want to
Speaker 3: talk about now. Because it was ninety ninety eight and
Speaker 3: it's probably fucking super offensive anyway. Think he's out a
Speaker 3: few chairs thrown at him in his time. So yeah,
Speaker 3: dad did that for a while. And I guess Dad
Speaker 3: would sing the songs and we'd make up songs together
Speaker 3: all through my childhood, and he would he wrote I
Speaker 3: remember my eighteenth birthday, my dad changed the song by
Speaker 3: Jason Moraz, you know I'm Yours by Jason Moraz. Dad
Speaker 3: changed that the words that to up yours and essentially
Speaker 3: told all my school friends, like about like the only
Speaker 3: time you get off the computer is when you do
Speaker 3: a pooh and like all these really embarrassing things. Essentially
Speaker 3: he told it in the form of song and the
Speaker 3: friends that still remind me of that to this day.
Speaker 3: And like, remember when your dad sung that song?
Speaker 2: So what like on your eighteenth birth they were a party, it.
Speaker 3: Was my birth party.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're friends.
Speaker 3: Are that your dad got up and sung that song
Speaker 3: sung Jason's got everyone to sing along and like the
Speaker 3: ap yours was like the main Aupius and yeah, it
Speaker 3: was fucked.
Speaker 2: I understand your dad.
Speaker 3: He's great classic, He's a classic, and he does it
Speaker 3: for everyone's birthdays, like if it's someone's you know, if
Speaker 3: it's just like my auntie Mary. It was her fiftieth
Speaker 3: and he did a beautiful song for her and it
Speaker 3: was it was heartfelt. But then he'd add these fucking
Speaker 3: really hectic kind of you know one liners in that
Speaker 3: everyone would laugh at and it's brilliant. It's it's just brilliant.
Speaker 2: So yeah, sounds like a business opportunity. We should get
Speaker 2: your dad to like, you know, we could feed feed
Speaker 2: your dad like various anecdotes about people, and he could
Speaker 2: turn it into a song and it could be like, hey,
Speaker 2: you got your birthday birthday song from his work exactly.
Speaker 3: I know he does it for all the staff from
Speaker 3: this if it's the staff's member's birthday, he'll get in
Speaker 3: and write a song. He'll just change the words to
Speaker 3: a song and write like that. So he's a classic
Speaker 3: my dad. Oh my god, do.
Speaker 2: You think that does it come? I mean, right at
Speaker 2: the start of the podcast, we talked about your mum
Speaker 2: and they kind of Welsh compassion and kind of is
Speaker 2: it do you think In a weird way, what we've
Speaker 2: ended up talking about is like the two sides, two
Speaker 2: big characteristics of your music, the sort of compassion.
Speaker 3: Of you know, mum's really gentle and yeah, and then.
Speaker 2: Your dad's kind of hang on and we just got
Speaker 2: to the root of it.
Speaker 3: Crazy we have essentially, yeah, we said we have. We've
Speaker 3: reached the we've hit the gold mine. Yeah, dad, Dad
Speaker 3: is a dad. I'm mostly like my dad in characteristics,
Speaker 3: Like it's very kind of outspoken and commands a room
Speaker 3: in the way that like isn't always appropriate. And just
Speaker 3: like you knows he's great. He knows I love him.
Speaker 3: He's the best. Yeah, And my friends love him. They
Speaker 3: all gravitate towards him. And he's had to get up
Speaker 3: and do a couple of speeches at you know, like
Speaker 3: local Perth Award nights or whatever, and he's got up
Speaker 3: and sworn his ass off on stage and everyone, you know,
Speaker 3: everyone likes my dad more than they like me, to
Speaker 3: be honest. So yeah, so that's where that kind of comedy,
Speaker 3: I guess comes from. But also I am interstand. I
Speaker 3: love James Acaster. I think he's wonderful and he's a genius.
Speaker 3: And he manages to do comedy without pulling the pits
Speaker 3: out of any minorities, you know what I mean. He
Speaker 3: manages to just he's so intelligent and I've got so
Speaker 3: much respect for.
Speaker 2: Him to see him. He performs in London, so you're
Speaker 2: going to have to time it with tours.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that moment when he played that tiny whatever it was,
Speaker 3: was like a tiny, little, tiny miniature keyboard and he
Speaker 3: tried to play old Langxion on it. It's one of
Speaker 3: the funniest things I've ever seen in my life. I
Speaker 3: had tears rolling down my face. He's the best.
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